PRAYING FOR UKRAINE

FINDING HOPE and TEARS IN PRAYER

praying for Ukraine

March 2, 2022

Ash Wednesday for many believers

At 10:00 am Central Time in the USA, the Lutheran World Federation hosted a service of prayer for the war in the Ukraine on Zoom. I had wanted to take time to really pray for this awful situation so I signed on. I was not prepared for how many and diverse a group of people it would be. Wow!

The people offering their thoughts and prayers on  the screen were from many different faith expressions and denominations. I didn't count those, just noted them. The people listening were from 45 countries, as far as I was able to count. See the list i have posted here. So there was translater button at the bottom of the screen so that most of us could hear in our own language. And apparently there were about 2000 people on the call. Wow!

They prayed for 

    wisdom

        kindness

            strength

                courage

                   love

                        hope

                           blessings

                                for diversity to be valued

                                    to love our neighbor

                                        for refugees to find safe homes

                                            for wealthy western countries to get over our egos

                                                and even COVID-19 pandemic

                                                    PEACE!

Many tears were shed on this side of the screen. And I remembered my friend Rena's words the other day--"With all that has happened in the past two years, I would ask you, "Why aren't we crying?" And suddenly it seemed like tears were an apt prayer for this horrible circumstance of yet another country trying to invade another by dropping bombs. Tears for letting go of our abiility to control, tears for the loss and grieving of so many, tears for our inability to be helpful, tears for sleepless nights, tears for the sadness of it all. Tears for the beauty of our unity as some 2000 people from nearly every continent gathered their hearts virtually to pray for peace in the world.  

I come away from that hour and a half with renewed hope. And I just wanted to share with you that this had happened. That there are people who want peace, who want to join their energy with others to make this world a better place. This one day of prayer does not fix everything but it is a good beginning because prayer changes us. When we open our hearts to wondering if there is a better way, to the possiblity that healing and courage and love can grow, we are already making healing and courage and love grow in ourselves and making space for that to happen for others as well.

Let us keep praying--in all the ways that we do--for all those things I listed--for wisdom, hope, strength, courage, love, and peace for all our human brothers and sisters all over the world.

As one of the speakers said today: "Let's commemorate this event by being hope!" Amen to that!

~sharing my thoughts and prayers, just Jules